Butters in Love
by robert3A-SN
Summary: Several fics here have portrayed Butters as gay or rumored as gay, but this is perhaps the first story to explore what might happen if he had those feelings for a girl- in this case the new girl in Mr Garrison's class


Disclaimer: This fic makes direct references to each of my first 4 South Park fics, so you may wanna be familar with them to get some of the stuff talked about here.  
  
"G-good morning Ms Crabtree, how's it g-going?"  
  
"SIT DOWN, WE'RE RUNNING LATE!!!", answered the crabby bus driver as always.  
  
"Oh, okay. I got a itch anyway"  
  
"WHAT?! DID YOU JUST CALL ME A BITCH?!! DO YOU WANT AN OFFICE REFERAL, KID?!!!"  
  
"N-no, n-no of c-course not, no siree, I-I mean m'ammree, I mean, uh..."  
  
"JUST SIT DOWN ALREADY!!!"  
  
"Oh, y-yes m'amm!", replyed a nervous Butters Stotch, who quickly took his window of opportunity to sit down on the bus, accompanied by a few chuckles from the kids around him.  
  
Same old, same old again, he figured. At least things were finally settling down to normal again, or what passed for normal in South Park. After getting rid of his evil alter ego Professor Chaos, facing an evil alternate version of himself from another universe, and making sure his former partner in evil gave up taking over the Professor Chaos identity, he had learned to appreciate having things the way they usually were. His classmates had even gotten back to teasing him for being a whimp most of the time- something Cartman was sure happy to get back to- but he knew that if it got too bad to make him forget that he did have friends, Stan or Kyle would make that stop.  
  
Speaking of which, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny were getting on the bus just now after their own exchanges with Ms Crabtree. "H-hey fellas, how it's going?"  
  
"How's it going?", answered Cartman, about to start his trademark string of insults Butters and everyone else was used to. "Here's a few hints. I have one friend who can't stop talking about being in love with a hippie girl, another taking away my job of commenting how sick that is and actually trying to fit in spending time with him and her to boot, another friend who's making some sick jokes I can't understand, and I have to say hello to a little pussy to boot! How do you think I feel?!"  
  
"Shut up Cartman!", interrupted Kyle. "You're not saying anything new anyway except for the Butters insult. Right Stan?" He stopped to see his best friend already on the way to speak to Wendy. "Hey dude, wait for me, how are we supposed to figure out which one of us you're hanging out with tomorrow night if I'm not there?"  
  
Kyle ran on and Cartman only rolled his eyes as he sat down with Kenny, who was already thinking of a new sex joke as we speak. Butters had to chuckle too, remembering the whole incident with Stan aging rapidly a while back that helped push back the memory of his battle with Evil Butters, and made Wendy a lot more worried about balancing her free time with Stan and his time with Kyle so no one got jealous. But at least he had quite some time with Stan at the tunnel of love a while ago, which scared Dougie into quitting being Professor Chaos. Although the whole thing with them kissing didn't look that gross to him, it even looked a litle neat to Butters, but at least Dougie thought it was gross enough to quit being evil over.  
  
"Oh well," he thought, "A-At least I have n-nothing left to worry about until the n-next big adventure thing happens." But he had pretty much gone through everything possible in the last few months from losing and regaining friends to facing evildoers. What was left for the stuttering blonde kid hovering at the edge of the in and the out crowd anyway?  
******************************************************  
"Settle down, children. Today the school has told me their latest plan to make my job more of a living hell than it already is, except for the occasional "educational" sex lessons with Mr Slave that is." That's how Mr Garrison began another school day for the 4'th grade South Park students, who thankfully were used to their teacher's disturbing side jokes by now.  
  
"Today children, we are going to welcome a brand new temporary student to our class. For the next few weeks this student shall observe just how screwed up you all are and maybe the guy will give you someone new to torture so you can't target me for a while." For once, Mr Garrison and many of his students were on the same wavelength, since they were looking forward to performing their usual hazing tactics on this new kid. Naturally, Cartman already had several imaginative solutions like that thought out. Mr Garrison continued his introduction anyway. "Please welcome....oh great, I have to read that it's a girl now?!" Again, the teacher and students were on the same wavelength since they'd get in more trouble for doing those tricks on girls. Cartman was having his fun cursing out that unoffical rule right now.  
  
Before Mr Garrison could keep saying his own curses, the new student that had the luck to be a girl came in. She was the average height and size of the other students, with a white t-shirt and blue pants on to go along with her short red hair. She had a tiny bit of a shy and nervous look on her face although not too many people were interested anymore to notice.   
  
"Okay, here's the kid who lives to ruin days early for all of us now, go on and use up your only shot to actually be heard now, kid." The girl stood up in front of the class and spoke in a normal girlish voice. "Hi everyone, my name is..." She was cut off by her new teacher before she could get that piece of information out.  
  
"That's nice, kid, why don't you tell the rest of your riviting story to whoever's gonna show you around the school later on and give me time to plan my insult routine for you. So, any takers?" None of the kids had any signs of responding to Mr Garrison's offer. Butters on the other hand, was looking at her with far more attention than the others. He could tell she was a bit uncomfortable coming into this strange room the moment she came in, and who knows how little Mr Garrison's jokes helped. Heck, he felt nervous around these guys a lot of the time, just think how it must be for someone who never saw them before or knew what they were capable of, so just think how much damage Cartman for one could do. That was Butters's last thought before he instantly put up his hand.  
  
"I-I'll do it, Mr Garrison! I'll be the t-tour guide person!" Butters called out.  
  
"Aw nuts, now it's the goody two shoes that's gonna leave me alone! Oh well, since fat troublemakers aren't gonna be too busy I can use my material on them." Mr Garrison was answered by a resounding "EY!!!" by a pissed off Cartman. He ignored it, and after the girl sat down, he went off to actually start teaching for the next few hours- if you call paddling Mr Slave and telling children that the Quakers destroyed Los Angeles after Rodney King took over Arizona teaching.  
  
Finally the bell rang and the kids went off to gladly forget everything he said in favor of having a far more fun lunch and recess. Butters of course, had other matters to take care of, as he went over to meet the girl and start his tour of South Park. Remembering to start off conversations with new people with a friendly hello, he started off with just that after he got to the girl's desk.  
  
"Hi new k-kid, I'm Butters, the tour guide guy Mr Garrison c-complained about, remember?"  
  
"I'm actually trying to forget some of the things he said, actually. Is he like that all the time?"  
  
"Yeah, it gets a little bit less n-nightmarish after a few years, I promise."  
  
"Then I'm a bit more happy that I won't be here long. But I might as well find out some postive things about this place until then. I guess you're gonna help with that?", requested the new girl.  
  
"I guess I w-wouldn't be a good tour guide guy if I didn't give it my b-best shot, would I?" Butters answered. He then figured she'd feel a bit more eager to get started if he offered to shake her hand. "So are you r-ready, um..."  
  
"I'm Julia." the no longer nameless new girl said as she shook Butters hand. "So, are you ready now then, Butters?"  
  
"S-Sure, in fact we'd b-better get going to lunch before Cartman orders all the Salisberry steak, come on!"  
******************************************************  
Lunch and recess went on the same as every other day, with Cartman chowing down on everything he got his hands on, Chef singing those motivational/love making technique songs to troubled children, and the daily insults at Pip whenever he tried to sit with someone. Butters had little time to notice however, as he was busy explaning all the nooks and crannies of the school to Julia, pointing out practically every little thing in the room in his attempt to do good as a tour guide guy.  
  
He continued his tour during recess, pointing out all the games and activities on the playground to the new girl. "There's the s-slides, they're real fun if you're not going high to fall down and hurt yourself. And there's the kickball area, you gotta watch out for Pip if someone makes any F-French jokes while he's there. Oh, and that neato g-game is called the monkey bars, I wish they'd t-tell us how monkeys could invent bars like that t-though. Are they the same thousand monkeys that type those plays I heard a-about?"  
  
"Um, Butters, I actually know all about these games, I've seen enough of them around the country to see my share of them." Butters felt a bit embarassed after Julia made her statement. "Oh, s-sorry then, I guess I like playing tour guide so much that I talked a bit t-too much."  
  
"No problem. Hey, I see a teetor totter over there, I know how that works. Maybe we could slow down a bit so I can make sure you know how it works too."  
  
"Um, is that part of some kinda confusing language new kids know or something?" Julia had to laugh a bit at her own comprehensive statements that Butters pointed out.  
  
"Yeah, that's a fancy new kid way of asking if you wanna ride the teetor totter for a while."  
  
"Oh! Well, I've been around l-long enough to understand that, let's g-go!"  
  
The two kids went on the seperate side of the teetor totter and started to ride it. A few seconds of silence passed before Butters decided to start the conversation up again.  
  
"So, uh, I heard Mr Garrison say you were only staying here for a little w-while. I-If you don't mind me a-asking, why is that? I thought you'd start feeling that way after Eric and Kenny met you."  
  
"It's nothing new for me, I'm one of those kids that move around a lot. My Dad's an actor in one of those acting groups that perform famous plays, they travel to a lot of cities to do that. So we move around a lot and stay in the town as long as the acting group keeps performing. Once their show closes, we go on to another town and start the whole thing over again."  
  
"So....you move around a lot, huh?" answered Butters since that was one of the few things he understood about that talk.  
  
"Yeah, sometimes we stay in a town for a few weeks cause no one comes to Dad's plays, sometimes they really like it and we're able to stay for a few months. But he says that this town doesn't look like it'll like old plays that much, so we'll probably only stay around for a few weeks."  
  
"W-Well, uh, at least if anyone gives you a hard time you won't have to p-put up with it long, huh?" Butters tried to joke.  
  
"Yep, I'm not around enough to make a lotta enemies, or friends for that matter. I can probably count the times I've been around long enough to make any friends on one hand."  
  
"Really? Wow, t-that must be rough. Why doesn't your Dad just get another job?"  
  
"He loves acting and stuff, and he's pretty convinced that one of these days some agent will find him and get him into a better acting group. Besides, he's not a bad guy, he takes care of me real well wherever we are, and he gets me in schools like this in every town we go to to keep my education going. Plus at least I've gotten to see more of the country than most kids my age.", Julia pointed out. "Even if it is usually for just a few weeks at a time before I know anybody."  
  
"Wow. I don't k-know if I could be able to handle that, I get nervous enough being this far from my h-house." Butters answered. "Not to m-mention that I've had a hard enough t-time making friends for about 9 years, doing it in about a few weeks would be n-next to imposs- I, I-I mean, um, I'm sure it's n-not as hard to do as I've h-heard it is."   
  
Butters sighed in relief after realizing and correcting his poor choice of words around the girl. Luckly she didn't seem as sad as he thought she would. "That's okay, I'm used to it by now. I've found that the best thing to do is just have as much fun as possible while I have the chance, and this ride is fun." "Okay then, I c-can help with that and cut down on the n-non fun stuff while I'm at it." Julia smiled a bit at Butters's attempt to be helpful.  
  
About a while later, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny came over to check out what they were up, and Butters got off the teetor totter to introduce his friends. "Oh, hey f-fellas. Julia, this is Stan, Kyle, K-Kenny, and the guy you pretty much h-have to ignore every word he says is Eric."  
  
"Ey, I'm not fat, I'm big boned!" Cartman answered even though Butters didn't actually call him fat. Kyle was quick to point that out. "He didn't even call you fat that time. At least he left that honor for me, fatass."  
  
"Um, m-maybe we should introduce Julia here to the girls, I'm sure Wendy, Bebe, and um, whatever other girls we have in our class would like to meet her.", Butters said to stop Cartman's latest tirade. He ran over to find the other girls, leaving the boys and Julia alone in an akward moment of silence, which Cartman ended. "Hey guys, maybe you can get the girls here quicker if you go over there, they haven't seen you for about 5 minutes and they're probably starving." Stan and Kyle weren't in the mood to deal with Cartman's girl jokes today, so they went off while Kenny followed them to try to make some of his own. Which left Cartman alone to start his plan to pull a great practical joke on Butters and the new kid.  
  
"So, new girl, I see you've been having a good time with Butters over there."  
  
"Yeah, he seems real nice."  
  
"Yep, he is most of the day. But what he turns into at about this time of day is another matter. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you that on your first day though."  
  
"I'll probably hear about it eventually, so I guess you can tell me now.", Julia said before she waited for Cartman to end the mystery of that hint.  
  
"Well, it is about that time when Butters turns into his evil alter ego, Professor Chaos. When he's like that, he becomes this real evil, scary guy who likes beating up people and feeding them to animals." Cartman chuckled at that last little reference to the evil, much cooler Butters from the other universe. "And, you know, Butters? He likes to really pound new kids to the ground so they know who's the boss. He can't help it, his only crime is being enough of a lunatic to create such a bully. But he's a bully all right, he created him right out of his screwed up head."  
  
"So he's got some kind of split personality? That's horrible!" Cartman groaned a bit since he wasn't trying to get Julia to feel sorry for the fictional Butters.  
  
"Yeah, it's bad, but there are ways to reverse it. He's gonna be turning into the Professor right when he gets back, you can stop him. All you have to do is beat the living crap outta him. We try it everyday but he knows our moves and he stops us cold, but he doesn't know your moves. You're our new hope to stopping his rein of terror for good and therefore gaining all kinds of friends you never had, all you have to do is pound the living fucking daylights outta him." Cartman smiled in anticipation of his certain success in getting Butters's ass kicked and having the new kid get in trouble for it. But he would live to regret his underestimating Julia's ability to detect total bullshit.  
  
"Are you nuts? You think you're the only one to think of stuff like this to get new girls in trouble? I've dealt with fat scheming kids like you in all of my schools, and I've been to a lot of them so it's not that hard for me to find those kids. You'd be full of it even if I believed that someone could actually make alter egos like that."  
  
"A-Actually, this is one of those r-rare times when he's not being a d-dirty liar." This was the line Butters used to announce his return along with the guys and girls. "I was a-about to tell you about the time I made up an e-evil alter ego but got rid of it when it got out of hand thanks to Kyle. I'm not like that anymore, so it'd be best to get that outta the way. T-that way it'd be too late for someone like Cartman to make jokes about it which you w-wouldn't have gotten right away. Thanks for doing that for me anyway, Cartman, that was r-real nice of you." Cartman was a bit shocked that Butters had gotten him for once, and Butters couldn't help but laugh at that same fact. Julia was a bit puzzled, but she saw Cartman's shock and she couldn't help but laugh at him too and how she too had gotten him good.  
  
"Ha, you were fooled big time by a new kid and a so called pussy, fatass!" Kyle said before eh started laughing. Cartman could only get pissed off enough to not actually say anything in English, and he stormed away as Butters and Julia continued to get their laughs from turning his prank into an embarassment.  
******************************************************  
The rest of the day went well enough as Butters explained whatever he had left out to Julia when he could. He did figure he'd have to find time to actually explain about Professor Chaos and that whole alternate universe mess that Cartman brought up, so he did just as they left school for the day.  
  
"S-So then they took that evil me away, and I heard he was in another u-universe run by that crazy Saddam guy that's in all the n-newspapers lately. He probably f-feels too much at home there to come back here so that's good."  
  
"Wow. Heh, usually the most interesting things that I hear kids my age talk about is video games", Julia repliyed.  
  
"Yeah, well those are f-fun too, but a lot of crazy things happen here to kinda l-limit our playing time. But things have been normal for me for a w-while. They're even s-starting to call me names again."  
  
"But I thought these guys were your friends."  
  
"They are, but they like to d-do that kinda thing to everybody. I guess I forgot t-that for a while after they fired me, plus I'm sure you've met guys like me who aren't t-that high up on the popularity chain."  
  
"Well, I didn't see anyone high up on that chain offer to show me around here and have fun, so I guess that kinda cancels how important that is."  
  
"Yeah, I p-probably don't understand a word of that, but yeah."  
  
They stopped that latest talk as they exited the school, stopping to see a van in front of the sidewalk and a mid 40's man dressed in classical attire in front of the vehicle. Julia went over to him right away.  
  
"Hi Dad! You're dressed up for tonight's show already?"  
  
"Yeah, we have to rehearse early, so I figured I'd come over and hear about your first day during my break time at the theater" answered the man before eh noticed Butters. Julia then acted quick to introduce him.  
  
"Oh, Dad, this is Butters. He showed me around the school today and told me some, well, interesting things about the people in it. Butters, this is my Dad, Mr Simmons."  
  
Mr Simmons shook Butters hand after being introduced. "Hello Butters, thanks for keeping my daughter entertained before it was my turn to do that."  
  
"Thanks, M-Mr Simmons, it wasn't any trouble at all. You can just go on with that acting stuff without worrying about her at all, yeppers!" "Okay then, now I can focus on worrying about memorizing Hamlet's Act III, Scene I speech tonight. Come on Julia, I'll need as many helpful witnesses as I can get for that." Mr Simmons got in the car after making his offer and Julia followed. She got into the front seat next to her Dad and then rolled down her window to say bye to Butters. "Bye Butters, thanks for getting me prepared for more insanity and laughing at Cartman in the future! See you tomorrow!"  
  
Butters called out "Okay, insanity and laughing at C-Cartman it is, see you tomorrow!" as the car drove away. He then took a breath and smiled as he started to walk home. "W-Well, that was a fun c-change of pace today, I'll say that much. Especially s-since I'm j-just remembering that that was p-pretty much the first time I, well, hung out with another person that l-long during school. Heh, and I thought school was f-fun enough already." Butters smiled again with that realization. Yeah, it was a fun day all right, and thanks to him, she'd have a better shot at having more of those around here. Maybe he could find a way to be part of a few of those if he was unusually lucky. But he'd worry about that later- besides, his cartoon reruns were gonna start any minute, he had to hurry if he was gonna watch them all for the 90'th time.  
******************************************************  
A few days later on a Saturday, Butters was walking down the street trying to think up what to do other than watch more cartoon reruns, which at the least were less surprising than the often unpleasent surprises of the outside world. He had that thought in mind as he passed by an apartment building, but he dropped that thought the second he noticed Julia walking towards that same building. "J-Julia, is that you? I think 3 days in s-school together is long enough for me to kinda p-pinpoint that out."  
  
"Oh, Butters, hi! I was just heading home to watch my Dad rehearse some more."  
  
"You live h-here?"  
  
"Well, there's usually no need for us to rent out a house since we stay in places for a short time, so we pick out apartments to rent for a while, and this is the best one avaliable for this town."  
  
"Well, I'm n-not an expert on that a-area of South Park, but it looks nice anyway. Well, uh, I guess your Dad's waiting for you."  
  
"Actually, he's been memorizing more and more of whatever play he's doing now, so I figure he won't need my help that much. I was more looking forward to finishing up in taking the toys out of the boxes in my room."  
  
"You have a room? I thought s-since you stay in places for a short time, you'd barely have t-time to stay in one before you had to p-pack up."  
  
"That does usually happen, but I try to spruce them up a bit with the time I have since I have nothing else to do. And my toys help to make me less bored too, though it's hard to think of new voices for them when I play all the characters." Julia paused to think of a good follow up line. "Um, if you're not too busy, would you mind helping me with that?" She paused again, remembering from her talks with Butters over the last few days that he sometimes didn't get things right away. "I mean would you like to come in and see my room and toys?"  
  
"You're a-asking me to do what? Wait, I-I didn't mean that I didn't understand that, it's just the part about asking _me_ that s-stuff I don't get. No one's actually inv-vited me over to their house before. But since I had n-nothing else planned, I can change that a lot easier! Sure, l-let's go!"  
******************************************************  
First on this record setting day for Butters was touring the apartment room the Simmons lived in. It was a standard place, but Butters was no expert in judging apartments since he hadn;t been in a lot of them. Mr Simmons came over and greeted him a bit later on, then he attempted to show off his acting skills to his guests by performing all kinds of speeches that Butters found real hard to understand. He said they were written back in the 16'th century by this guy named Will who wrote a lot differently than people do today. Butters could only imagine how people were able to talk to each other in such confusing language as Mr Simmons was talking about, but he was a guest here, so it was best not to actually say anything like that out loud. After a while Julia went over to get some snacks, leaving Butters alone with his father.  
  
"So, uh, n-nice place you got here, sir. Do these actor guys always stay in these p-places?"  
  
"Most of the time I have to since our productions often don't last that long. Our troupe is only allowed to perform when people come to see us, and when they stop we have to find another town to play in. So far it looks like this town won't have us around that long. But I'm sure Julia already told you that stuff."  
  
"I r-remember most of that, sorry I don't remember it all cause of my s-short memory, sir."  
  
"I guess you must think that it's a bit cruel to keep moving us around from place to place like that. Did she tell you that she thought it was?"  
  
"N-No sir, she said you took real good care of her, if she's r-real upset she didn't tell me. Although I've only known her for 3 days and the g-guys I've know my whole life are good at k-keeping things from me sometimes."  
  
"Well, I'm hoping that I won't have to chance it for long. I'm trying to get more success in this business, acting is the one thing I think I'm really good at, and you should have a career about what you like to do and are good at at the same time. I've tried to do that with as little damage to my daughter as I can. It is good that she has someone to talk to this time around, she hasn't always had the chance for that." reflected Mr Simmons.  
  
"Geez, I guess that is r-rough. But she did say she likes having as m-much fun as she can while she's around, and now she's seen f-fit to have me help out with that, it looks like." As if on cue, Julia arrived and offered to show Butters her room now.  
  
When they got there, Butters saw that she had a bed, a clock, a closet, a hamper, and all kinds of stuff you;d find with kids who stay in their rooms perminently. Along with that, there were all kinds of dolls and toys from the popular cartoon shows and movies of the day that caught Butters attention. "Y-You have SoapRobert SquareSuds stuff and Bug-Eyedpuff Ladies stuff? Wow, you even got Sparkly Star trekwar stuff! And, and that looks like dolls from the L-Lord of the Rings, and they even have their clothes on this time! Neato!"  
  
"Yeah, Dad tries to keep me busy and involved with his work and school, but to make sure I'm not bored the rest of the day, he got me this stuff." Julia responded to an impressed Butters.  
  
"Your Dad m-must be rich to get this stuff. I gues the acting stuff pays him a lot then!"  
  
"It pays him enough to to provide for us wherever we go. But it's not enough to find us a perminent place to stay, he says that'll come when a big time agent finds him and gets him in a more popular acting group."  
  
"Well, a lot of famous people l-like coming here for some reason, though a lot of them are u-usually guys trying to take over the world." Butters answered in an attempt to get Julia's spirits up.  
  
"That's okay, I try not to think about it. There are some things I don't like about this kind of living, but I like a lot of things about it too. I already told you I see a lot of sights and my Dad trys to include me in his stuff as much as he can, he's actually able to spend a lot of time with me. And I'm good at making up my own kinds of fun in here, but..." Julia trailed off a bit but Butters could sense what she was trying to say and he picked it up for her.  
  
"But you l-like it better with someone your own a-age to add their own f-fun to it, right? And that's where I come in? I understand, e-everyone needs someone to have fun with, and I guess you think I'm f-fun enough to fill that position, huh?"  
  
"Well, you do seem like the most normal kid in the whole class, though anyone's normal compared with that teacher. And you've been the best one to talk to and play games with so far. I know guys like you are hovering between being liked and made fun of, but it's a bit of a shame to me that a nice and fun kid like you has to go through that" Butters couldn't help but smile since he wasn't used to having kids his age say they liked having fun with him even though she didn't say those words exactly. "All r-right then, now that this f-fun guy is here, what do you wanna play with me, the f-fun guy, first?"  
******************************************************  
Over the next 2 weeks, Butters enjoyed playing in Julia's room enough to come over and do that again a few more times. He also fit in whatever time he could at school to hang around with her at recess and lunch. He even went over to the theater where her Dad works and managed to stay awake for the whole performance he and his acting troupe gave of some old play about a couple that killed themselves in a church while their familes were killing each other.  
  
But Butters's most fun times were with the actors daughter. It felt nice to for once know someone entirely eager to see him and play games and watch TV with him, instead of the usual remarks and stuff he'd hear if he asked the guys in school to do that. He wasn't sure if she was just doing all that with him just to have someone her age to talk to or if it was cause she actually liked him, but he didn't mind either way. She was always nice to him and she never insulted him, so maybe she did like him. But he definatly knew that he liked being around her, it was fun.   
  
One Friday at school was a little less than fun though.  
******************************************************  
"Class, today I've finally been given a bone by the administration by allowing people nearly your age to talk to you today." began Mr Garrison. "In about 2 years, my stress levels will go down significantly because you'll be gone from this building forever, but yours will only go up when you arrive in middle school. Today you're gonna hear how that's like from people already there, they'll be talking to you all day and during recess too, so I can proceed with some much needed free time with Mr Slave without any trouble. Please welcome a group of menacing 6'th graders from the local middle school everyone."  
  
Mr Garrison was a lot happier to see these 6'th graders than the students though. They were the same 6'th graders that regularly loved to torment the 4'th graders, most recently in that incident where the 4 main boys tried to return "The Lord of the Rings" to the video store and the 6'th graders were after it because it was actually a porno tape. Butters recognized them and for a minute he hoped they had his "precious" video tape around for him to watch again. But they clearly looked more ready to torment the 4'th graders than to watch excellent cinema with naked people in it.  
  
The 6'th graders gave their scheduled classroom talk to the 4'th graders mixed with menacing glares at them, then the students rushed off to recess. Their attempts to distract themselves with playground fun were soon interrupted though.  
  
"Ooh look, the 4'thies are celebrating their success in stopping us from watching porn by playing ball!" said one of the 6'th graders as he interrupted the boys dodgeball game. Of course, the 4 main boys had no idea why he called the Lord of the Rings porn, they just figured it was part of some 6'th grade language and went over to play something else. But the 6'th graders got in the way of that too.  
  
"Look, you're dicks to us every time we see you, you can afford to not be dicks at least once while we're actually in school!" Stan said in an attempt to reason with them.  
  
"Ha, sorry 4'thie, we have been a little rusty on that stuff lately and we need to get back in the "swing" of things!", said the head 6'th grader while pointing to the swings, his obvious mode of torment. Butters then stepped in to try to stop things before they got all messy.  
  
"N-Now fella, it's Friday, there's no n-need to start off the weekend with those kinda t-threats, is there?" Butters fellow student groaned since they knew a stupid line like that would get him in a bit of trouble. The 6'th graders however, looked a bit less miffed at him than they thought.  
  
"You're right, we came here to have fun with you guys, we should do that. Why don't we spin away our troubles on the merry go round?" The head 6'th graders followed his boast by going towards the playground's merry go round, and Butters, thinking that he wanted to play on that with him, followed shortly- though the other saw what was coming.  
  
"Go on kid, get on the merry go round."  
  
"Oh, o-okay, this should be fun as long as I don't get s-spun too fast, y-you will spin that thing slowly, r-right?" Kyle intterupted before the 6'th grader could answer Butters.  
  
"Hey come on, this is obvious and pathetic enough, leave Butters alone!"  
  
"What was that, 4'th grader? Let me finish my fun first before I talk all serious. Grab on to the bars, Butters."  
  
Butters grabbed onto the bars just as the 6'th grader picked him up. Another 6'th grader started spinning the carosel and the head one let go, leaving Butters hanging on to the bar as he was being spun around and around. Soon, despite the kids objections, the 6'th graders spun the merry go round at a very fast pace, leaving Butters hanging on for dear life, knowing that if he let go he'd fly through the air and break his neck in the landing- or at least he came close to figuring that out as the sickeness from being spun around started to get to him. The other kids tried to get to their friend but they really couldn't do anything.  
  
Julia was not among them since she was getting a drink at the water fountain, but when she came back and saw what happened, she rushed over and was able to think of something. "Butters! Let go!"  
  
"C-C-Can't, I-I-I-I'll b-b-break some k-k-kinda b-b-b-bone!"  
  
Julia barely made that out, but she was more concered about her next idea. She stood right in front of the merry go round to where Butters was spinning right by her while the 6'th graders kept spinning it. "Butters, when I tell you to, let go! I'll make sure you don't land and break something, just do it when I tell you! Trust me!"  
  
Butters was barely well enough to start to understand how this would work, but he did trust Julia, and if she said this idea wouldn't get him hurt...well, it's not like he could come up with a brighter idea. Once Julia said "Now!" he let go of the bars. And the idea worked. How? Because Julia told him to let go just as he was about to spin past her, and so when he let go, he was landing right towards Julia and she was able to catch him. She fell down when he landed on her, but it broke his fall and prevented him from getting hurt.   
  
Butters rolled off her in a second and Julia started to get up to catch her breath. The head 6'th grader then walked towards her. "Whoh little girl 4'thie, that was pretty cool. You deserve a nice pat on the back." The 6'th graders then patted Julia on the back hard enough for her to stumble towards the spinning bars on the merry go round- near enough so that when her head turned, one of the spinning bars hit her right on the head.  
  
Julia fell down immediatly, the only difference from when she fell down before was that this time she had a huge bump right on her head, a bruise and cut from the blow, and she gave a good cry this time. The pain did make her cry pretty good actually.   
  
Butters got up just then, finally able to recover from his own experience. He remembered that he was spinning and he seemed to have landed right on Julia. So in that regard, she saved him from a pretty nasty injury from a fall- and he then looked over to find that she had an injury of her own. The head 6'th grader who caused that was laughing, so even he could easily guess that he did that to the girl who saved him. And that was the sight that made him feel anger he hadn't felt since the Evil Butters incident, a pretty big anger for a kid who wasn't used to being that upset that he could punch someone.  
  
"Somebody hold me back..."  
  
Stan and Kyle immediatly forfilled that request just as Butters was about to charge at the 6'th graders and kick his ass, even though there was no way he could actually do that. He was a tiny bit too upset at him to care about that though, and wished that he hadn't told the guys to hold him back the more he heard Julia crying. Fortunatly Chef, the voice of reason, came over just then.  
  
"Boys, what the fudge is going on here, I can't concintrate on writing my song lyrics with all this racket? What happened?"  
  
Butters spoke without a trace of a stutter for once. "That asshole 6'th grader spun me around the merry go round, then he must have had Julia's face bashed with those bars after she saved me! Stan and Kyle are holding me back cause if they didn't, I'd pound that 6'th grade shiteater to the ground, even if I could think clearly to know that couldn't happen!"  
  
Chef turned his attention from Butters's uncharacteristic use of profanity to the 6'th graders, who looked a bit more nervous themselves since Chef looked ready to deal his own brand of punishment.  
  
"These children listen to me, so I probably should tell him to kcik your ass for that, your parents probably shoulda done that a few times to some of you! But since I actually have a better shot to punish you, I'll take over for the children from here." Chef got out a belt which would obviously be meeting the asses of the 6'th graders if he had his way, so they ran away right away to avoid that. Chef chased them as they jumped the walls of the playground though. He left behind a scene where Stan and Kyle finally let Butters go and he calmed down enough to come towards Julia as Principal Victoria came over to hear what happened.  
  
"My goodness, we have to get this young lady to the nurse's office quick!" Julia was hurt, but not hurt enough to not state her objections to the Principal's idea.  
  
"No! No, that's where I heard that nurse with the fetus on her head is! I know it's true because I checked with the other boys after Cartman told me so I know he didn't make it up!"  
  
"So you're brave enough to let Butters land on top of you, but not enough to see the nurse?" asked Stan before he remembered why she was scared of the nurse and shut up.  
  
"Well, fetus or no fetus you need medical attention!" Julia still cringed at Principal Victoria's suggestion as she continued to cry from the pain.  
  
Butters knew all about the nurse and her fetus, and he was natually scared of it, since after all, even the brave kids here were. But Principal Victora was right, Julia needed medical attention. And it seeemed she needed some convincing to do that, she needed reassurance that everything would be fine- and he needed to pay her back for getting a big bruise on her hand just for saving his life, he knew he had to do that. And even though the idea of how to do that scared him, one look at her and he knew he had to go through with it.  
  
"Julia, y-you have to see the nurse to get that b-brusie and cut looked at. But you don't have to b-be scared because, well, because I'm coming with you and I'll be with you the whole time she's examining you. I'll make sure you don't g-get scared, I promise. Will that make you feel a bit less s-scared?"  
  
Julia just lied there for a few moments until she started to try to get up. Seeing that she now agreed to follow his plan, Butters helped her up and went with her to start the trip to Nurse Gollum's office.  
******************************************************  
Outside of the nurse's office, the other kids were waiting outside the door to see what was going on and were waiting to hear any screams of terror from the kids inside. But inside, Butters and Julia were quivering a bit as Nurse Gollum, the conjoned fetus lady, examined Julia's bruise, but Butters was trying his best to lend emotional support so she wouldn't get scared. The nurse then went somewhere else in the room to get some ice for the bruises.  
  
Why did she do all this? Now that Butters could regain his thoughts, this was the one question he was asking in his head. She got a nasty bruise from a bar on a merry go round just because she saved him from getting hurt. Why did she do that for him? No one had ever done anything like that for him before. True, Kyle did save him from Professor Chaos and Evil Cartman pounded his evil self after he sent him away, but this was something new. No one from his universe had ever gone this far to do something for him until today.  
  
Nurse Gollum returned and Julia was starting to get a little less scared of her, but Butters still figured he had to give her reassuring smiles and other things to calm her down anyway. Heck, thinking about her and staring at her was getting his mind of his fears, so he figured he'd focus on that for now.  
  
She was something, he had to admit that. Though he was technically friends with the guys outside, he knew none of them would ever be that eager to spend a lot of time with him and play games and stuff and hang around with him a lot of the time. She was the first person other than his parents who was ever that kind of a friend, and he only knew her for 2 1/2 weeks. There had to be some kinda catch though, did she just do all that stuff because she was lonely and needed a friend enough that she didn't care what kind of kid would fit that bill? Butters liked to believe that someone who felt that way wouldn't have thought of going to all this trouble.  
  
Butters kept staring at her, it seemed that Nurse Gollum was wrapping up her examination and was about to coll the bruise down by putting ice on it. When she did, Julia jumped a bit from the cold and wound up grabbing Butters's hand. That was more of a shock to him than the ice was to her, but he reacted a lot better than she did, he thought that this shock felt really good. He kept his hand below hers as he continued to do some examining on her himself. He didn't think girls were that different from him, not enough that he was nervous around him, he just talked to them like he would talk to another boy. There was nothing really different about it. But now, he was examining Julia's now calm face and pretty red hair, and thinking about the recent events of the day- and f he could see himself, he'd see that he was starting to show an almost goofy smile on his face, almost like one of Stan's goofy smiles around Wendy. But he snapped out of it once Nurse Gollum gave her diagnosis.  
  
"Okay, with some ice and a good time of rest and relaxation, the pain should calm down soon enough. Unfortunatly for you, since it's Friday you won't have to miss any days from school, this will be all better by Monday. Still, we've already called your Dad and he's coming to take you home so you can start to relax there. Principal Victoria will let you stay in her office until then, go on there."  
  
Julia finally got up and started to leave the room for the Principal office. Nurse Gollum then told Butters he and the others waiting outside should get back to class now, meaning Butters wouldn't get to see her the rest of the school day. This was fine with him for now, he was just now starting to wonder why he felt so, well, strangely around her a second ago, he never felt that way around her before. Or around anyone else, for that matter. He knew he was already strange as the kids liked to tell him, but still....this was real strange indeedy.  
******************************************************  
Right after school ended though, Butters recovered enough to head for her apartment, he still needed to see how she was done and get to actually thanking her for saving him. It didn't take long for him to find her, he opened the door to the apartment and Julia and her father were right there. Mr Simmons was putting ice on the bruise just as Nurse Gollum had done earlier before he noticed Butters.  
  
"Hello Butters. I wish I was a bit less busy so I could be better at saying hello." Butters was a bit nervous now as he now thought her Dad blamed him for the injury.  
  
"H-Hi, M-Mr Simmons. I j-just came over to see how Julia was doing."  
  
"The ice is helping a bit. So, I heard you were a close witness to this little setback today."  
  
"I-I'm real sorry about that, s-sir, I d-didn't mean to let her get that b-bruise because I was t-tricked into being spun on the m-merry go round, I know t-that makes it s-seem like my fault p-probably!"  
  
"What are you talking about, do all you kids here come up with those kind of delusions?"  
  
"Well, C-Cartman likes to do that a l-lot too."  
  
"I'm not angry at you, Julia told me the whole thing, and she told me she wouldn't have gotten treatment right away if it wasn't for you."  
  
"O-Oh yeah, the Nurse Gollum fetus t-thing. I p-pretty had no choice but to do that s-stuff, she was brave in s-saving me so I'd probably look like the j-jerk for not doing the s-same thing."  
  
"It's my turn to thank you for that now. Hold on a second, this ice is starting to melt, I'd better go get a fresh batch." Mr Simmons left, leaving the kids alone.  
  
"S-So, um, you starting to f-feel a little better?"  
  
"I heard I should be fine by the end of the weekend, so you lost your shot to get all my schoolwork for me."  
  
"That's okay, Mr Garrison gave me stuff to t-take to you already." Butters got out a huge folder of work from his backpack.  
  
"Figures. But I've probably learned enough about acting from Dad to fool him about why I couldn't do this stuff." Julia laughed and Butters chuckled a bit too. He then remembered the main reason why he came here.  
  
"L-Listen, about today, I just wanted to say...I mean I thought I should s-say...golly gee whiz, I wish someone had done this sort of t-thing for me before so I'd know how to thank you better! I really d-don't know what to say."  
  
"I'll do most of the talking then. You're welcome, and thank you for being with me in that nurse's office. I really appreciate that along with the other things you've done for me so far."  
  
"Well, I've h-heard that t-that kinda thing is what friends are for, r-right? Did I hear wrong or s-something, cause if I did I can find better s-sources, there are p-plently of-" Butters was cut off as Julia shut him up by giving him a hug. The only things Butters could remember that he had done- other than feel all goofy and strange like he had felt in the nurse's office- was that he tried to move his arms to hug her back but he really was too overcome to move. Mr Simmons returned just as Julia let go of him, and he figured he'd better go. He turned away to go, still feeling that same strange feeling, and he caught Julia waving to him as she walked away. For some reason that was it for Butters, as the feeling overtook him- and made his throw up all over the ground.  
  
"Oh God, not you too!" Butters turned to see Kyle next to him now.  
  
"W-What do you mean not you too?"  
  
"Come on Butters, I looked through that door and when I wasn't staring at that fetus I saw how you were looking at her in the nurses office. And I was walking by here to get home when I saw her hugging you and you got that same look. Let's not forget the throwing up part either."  
  
"So, do you know w-what all that means, cause I could s-sure use a hint."  
  
"Dude, you're in love with this kid!" Butters paused for a second and then laughed a bit.  
  
"Nah, that can't be, s-she's just my friend."  
  
"Dude, you've been playing with her all the time for 2 weeks, this is what happens when you spend so much time around girls. Those looks and that vomiting is what happened when Stan spent all that time with Wendy, I know what I'm talking about even though I'm still a bit grossed out by that stuff. You totally have a crush on her at least, you gotta admit that."  
  
"N-No, t-that can't be true, she's just a-" Kyle stopped Butters with a challenge. "Friend, right. Let's test that, just think about all the stuff you were thinking when you were in those moods then tell me you still think that way." Butters paused for a few seconds, then he threw up again. "I rest my case."  
  
Butters was beyond shock at this point. He stuttered unitellegently for a while before he finally spoke English. "H-H-How'd this h-happen? W-W-What am I s-s-supposed to do?"  
  
"Sorry Butters, I'm hardly an expert on this stuff, I'm still trying to not get grossed out by it. You'd be better asking someone else and not letting Kenny or Cartman find out anything about it." Kyle left Butters to panic some more about his new problem.  
******************************************************  
Butters returned home not even in the mood to say more than a few words to his parents. He went right up to his room to try to think about the whole thing calmly. He tried to sort out everything one issue at a time.  
  
First of all, how did this even happen? This morning he thought of her as just a friend, now all of a sudden he had those other feelings for her? It didn't seem to make any sense, but Kyle's test proved. He thought about her and he felt all funny like Stan usually does and he threw up. There was no other answer. Besides, if he had to experience this for the first time there weren't that many better choices that Julia...  
  
Wait one second, what the hell was he thinking anyway? Issue 2, she was only a temporary student, once the local theater closed down her father's acting thing she'd be leaving, and word was it would be closing any day now. But then again, he had heard of a thing called long distance relationships, maybe there was a way to get around this. Maybe they could figure out something...  
  
Wait again, issue 3. Just because he felt that way about her didn't mean she felt that way about him. But then again, he didn't feel that way this morning and look what happened. Maybe the same thing would happen to her at the right opportunity....  
  
Wait one more time, he was going off on all these possibilities all at once, he had to think rationally about this. None of those last few issues would ever even be brought up in the open until he actually talked things over with her. But there's another set of problems, now that this is happining, how is he even gonna talk to her? Will he just throw up on her like Stan used to do or do something else crazy? Geez, no wonder Stan was so confused by this whole love business that he took an aging drug to solve it.  
  
"W-Wait a minute, I gotta take this one s-step at a time. And it looks like the only w-way I can solve all this is by t-talking to her first and t-telling her this stuff, yeah, after that I can f-fgiure this whole thing out with her help!" Butters was overjoyed for a second until one final problem came up- how was he going to tell her? He couldn't just go over there and do it, he would probably do it incorrectly since he was slow to understand things right in front of his face, let alone stuff he was new to like love. He knew he had to handle things differently with her than before since his feelings had changed, but how? What was the right way to act and what were the right things to say to someone you liked like that?  
  
He didn't know, so it seemed there was only way to figure it out. He needed to ask advice from someone who did know. But again, who?  
  
Chef? He knew everything about anything the guys asked him, but he didn't have time to hear his various songs about it since he was working against time here, she could leave at any time. He had to tell her before them or else he'd regret it forever, and Chef's song would eat up valuable time.  
  
Butters's parents? Well, they obviously went through the same things he did and they obviously knew how to make it work or else where would he be? But they flipped out when he confessed to crimes he didn't commit and other such things, who knows how'd they react to this stuff? Besides, it would probably be embarassing to talk about this in front of them. What would really make him comfortable was to speak to kids his age that were in the same position he did and made it work. He didn't know those kind of kids though- except...  
  
"Of course!! I got it, I know who to talk to! The s-same couple I saved from Professor Chaos, or I would have if he d-didn't fail before I got there! Stan and Wendy!"  
  
Yes, that was perfect! Stan and Wendy were his age and they had love problems, but they had made it work out, he saw proof of that in the tunnel of love that night! He could ask Stan how boys were supposed to behave in front of girls they liked and how they could stop being nervous around them, since now that he stopped throwing up around them he could help out with that. And Wendy was the smartest girl in school, she could easily figure out what girls liked about boys and what impressed them. Besides, she was still on some kind of self improvement kick to act better with Stan and other people, that would have to include helping him out! And if they didn't shed some light on the problem, he could always attempt to ask his parents as a last resort. But this idea seemed too perfect for that.  
  
"Okay then, t-that settles it! Tomorrow afternoon I'm gonna go out there and g-get those guys advice on how to d-deal with this love s-stuff! Phew, now I can watch that Placemat-rats show about babies in a lot more p-peace than before!"  
******************************************************  
The next afternoon Butters found himself heading for Wendy's house. His plan was that first he had to know how girls like to be talked to and treated by guys that liked them, and Wendy would sure be an expert on that. Then he'd go over to Stan's house and get his opinion on how to handle things with Julia. Yeah, that was a good plan, and since he was about to knock on Wendy's door it was too late to change it now. "Okay, h-here we go." Butters muttered just before he knocked on Wendy's front door. It opened a second later.  
  
"Hiiii Stan...AHHH!!"  
  
Butters jumped a bit since that wasn't the reaction he was expecting from Wendy when she first saw him. Apperantly she was expecting Stan to come over for whatever they had planned today, and seeing Butters was therefore more of a shock for her. "Butters?! What are you doing here?! Did Stan send you or something?"  
  
"No, n-no he didn't. C-Can I come in and explain?"  
  
Wendy let him in while she was still trying to figure out what he'd say to answer her question. She had nothing against Butters and would have more strongly objected to the guys treatment of him if that came up after the aging incident, but she was still puzzled to see him, they had rarely if ever talked in school and outside. But Butters then started to try to explain him himself. "Okay, um, why am I here? Um, well, it's like t-this. You know that n-new girl Julia?"  
  
"Yeah, I know her, we all saw what happened yesterday. Why, did something happen to her? Gasp, does she have her eyes on Stan?! Gasp again, does Stan have his eyes on her?!! Why that..."  
  
"No, no no no, he doesn't like her that w-way!" Wendy sighed. Butters couldn't help but make a comment about her worries though. "Gee, you don't really think that h-he'd like someone else after all you guys have been through, d-do you?"  
  
"Well, that is one of the bad habits I'm still trying to break."  
  
"Yeah, he's n-not the one that likes her. And about that, y-you know why I know that? I know he doesn't like her cause the guy w-who does is..." Butters stammed for a while trying to get the words out. This was sad though, if he couldn't tell a girl he rarely talked to in his class this, how could he tell Julia later? But that was what he was here to find out, and that couldn't happen until he finished his sentence with, "....me."  
  
Wendy paused to take that in. "You? You're saying that you, well, like her like her?"  
  
"I'm as s-shocked as you are."  
  
"Well, eh, why are you telling me that? Oh, I get it, you're afraid the guys would laugh at you if you told them or you told them already and they laughed."  
  
"No, you're the f-first person I told."  
  
"How come?"  
  
"Because, well, uh, I need some advice. I haven't told her yet either, and I n-need to figure out how to do that. I thought, well, you could help me."  
  
"Me? How come you thought of me?"  
  
"Cause you're the s-smartest girl in our class and you're always telling everyone what the r-right and wrongs of the world are. And cause you already k-know all about this love b-business with Stan, so as hoping you'd p-pass some of that to me."  
  
"I thought that girl was just staying here for a little while. You do know that means she won't be staying here." Wendy pointed out.  
  
"I know, I know, but maybe I can f-find someway to get around that, and I can't do that until I tell her how I feel. But I don't know how and I d-don't know how I'm supposed to do things with girls I like that way. What do girls like to hear f-from boys that like them, I thought you c-could help me figure that out. So w-would you help me figure that out?" Butters asked before remembering the magic word. "Please?"  
  
"Well....sure. I'd be happy to." Wendy answered since after all, this was for love, and it was a subject she'd be able to help out with.  
  
"Really? Hooray!" Butters was thrilled, but his thrills stopped a bit when Stan suddenly came into the house.  
  
"Wendy? What's Butters doing here? I wasn't that late for you to turn to another guy already!"  
  
"W-What? N-No, that's not what's g-going on, but that d-does make the real r-reason funnier, I guess." Butters then went on to explain his situation to Stan.  
  
"Whoh dude, and I thought Kyle was joking when he told me about that stuff on the phone. Not to mention that we all thought Butters would turn out gay too."  
  
"Stan!", objected Wendy.  
  
"Well that's what I heard, I didn't help them out or anything!"  
  
"Well, that's obviously not true now, and he asked me to help him make sure it got even farther."  
  
"Hey Butters, how come you didn't ask me, I'm starting to get this love thing now, a lot better than before at least!", asked Stan.  
  
"T-That's great, I was gonna go ask you for advice when I was d-done with Wendy, at least now I know that's gonna turn out good!"  
  
"Yeah, but you did ask me first so I guess we should get that done. Stan, you can relax and make yourself at home while I'm talking with Butters. I should only be a few minutes, then he can talk to you and then he can try out our advice while we have our fun too."  
  
"Hey, y-you were sure right in calling her smart in the t-tunnel of love, huh Stan?" Butters asked.  
  
"You were watching us in there?" Stan answered before Butters wisely decided to go start his session with Wendy.  
******************************************************  
Said session took place in Wendy's kitchen as the hostess and Butters sat down in front of the kitchen table.  
  
"So what exactly do you want to know?" Wendy started.  
  
"I should p-probably start off by asking how you should talk to girls you l-like in that way, what do they wanna hear? I already know I have to act all d-different and fancy and stuff."  
  
"Why do you think you have to do that?"  
  
"Well, they d-do that all the time on TV, and I know you have to talk all fancy t-too, like you did in that tunnel."  
  
"I'm still trying to ignore that you saw that, besides, it's not an accurate lesson to what you have to do at all. Girls do like it when you act that way, but you don't have to do that all the time."  
  
"I don't? Well, I k-know I have to stop doing immature stuff around her, girls aren't b-big fans of that I heard."  
  
"They don't, but that shouldn't be such a big deal, I learned that the hard way."  
  
"Well, what do I have to do different anyway?" a somewhat impatient Butters asked.  
  
"Honestly, I really don't think you have to do anything. You didn't worry about all that stuff when you were around her before and she had fun, you were acting normally and she obviously liked it. Girls like guys that aren't afraid to be themselves and they like when they're nice and respectful as themselves. You're nice to everyone all the time and it's obvious she likes that, so just keep it up."  
  
"But w-what if she doesn't like it in that w-way?"  
  
"If she doesn't, she won't yell at you for it. Besides, I saw what she did to save you and I saw her having fun with you like everyone else did. I wouldn't be so surprised if she did have those kind of feelings. But if not, she won't put you down for having them, she's your friend and I'm sure even if she doesn't want to be that good of a friend, she'd want to stay friends."  
  
"Well, that wouldn't be so b-bad at all! But if she does feel, um, that way....will I have to k-k-kiss her? I'm starting to relate more to what Stan used to g-go through when I think about that." Butters nervously told Wendy.  
  
"Stan can help you with that. But you can't test that out until you tell her how you feel first. Do you really feel that way about her?"  
  
"W-Well, I t-think I do, I know I really r-really like her though. I guess I can talk that over with her w-when the time comes, huh? The only problem is figuring out how to b-bring it up."  
  
"You don't have to drastically change anything to do that though. Like I said, I think all you have to do is act like you always do, she already likes you at least in one way because you've done that. Just be yourself."  
  
"Be m-myself. Yeah, that would be a lot e-easier to do! I probably should get another opinion before I make that my c-choice though."  
  
"Sure, why don't you go fix that with Stan's help now?"  
  
A few minutes later Butters asked Stan those same exact questions along with a few new ones.  
  
"Stan, um, since we all know there's no s-science cure for throwing up in front of girls, how d-did you do it then?"  
  
"I'm not sure exactly, it just happened. When it finally did I just forgot all about any problems, focused on Wendy, and got through it."  
  
"So you have to t-think about things other than vomit then? That's good since I don't like to t-think about it in my free time, it's just too icky."  
  
"I don't know how to explain it as advice dude, it just came to me. If I had to say something you could use, and I suppose I do, I just wanted to kiss her so badly at that time that I finally willed myself to do it, and then I just laughed and laughed after that because I didn't know why I was so nervous to do something that great in the first place." Wendy couldn't help blush at that even if she wanted to help it.  
  
"I thought the other guys made fun of people w-who acted like that."  
  
"Well, it's their problem for minding, and I had to age to 100 years old to learn that. Besides, we've made fun of you for worse things than that, now you only have Cartman and maybe Kenny to worry about with this."  
  
"So I d-don't have to act all macho like those action movie guys?"  
  
"Nah, Wendy tells me that girls aren't as big a fan of that as we think. Apperantly just acting normal and being yourself are in things with them, I know she likes that with me."  
  
"Hey, I know that cause she told me a few minutes ago! That whole theory m-makes a lot more sense with two people saying it now!"  
  
"It worked for me, and she already likes you if Kyle was telling the truth about seeing her hug you. But isn't she supposed to leave soon cause her dad is acting or something?"  
  
"T-That's why I have to tell her quick, but I should probably take some t-time to rehearse. Now that I know what to do, that shouldn't t-take so long. Just be myself and think of how much I wanna kiss her if it comes to that, that should only take the w-weekend to get down pat! Thanks guys, I'd better get started right now!" Butters ran out of the house obviously to start practicing.  
  
"You think he'll be all right, Stan? He probably should be, it's obvious she likes him."  
  
"We'll hear all about it at school soon enough. But until then, can we start our own time together now?"  
  
"If I didn't have a worthy cause to focus on back there, I'd say I thought you'd never ask."  
  
"Does that mean we can start hanging out now in girl talk?"  
  
"It's close enough."  
******************************************************  
Over the weekend Butters spent as much time in his room as he could practicing what he would say to Julia. He even tried to prepare for a kissing scene in case that ever happened, using a pillow as a target. He was sure glad he had a waste basket nearby during every experiment though, now he wouldn't have to explain why he was cleaning up throwup stains on his rug to his parents. He'd have to go through the whole thing with them eventually, but since he knew what to do now he could hold off on that. He'd deal with the more current problem of Julia first before he broke the news to his parents, besides she'd been over his house a few times and they didn't object to her then, why would they now?  
  
His final plan was to break his news to Julia on Monday after school. He would have rather done it before that so he wouldn't be so nervous around her at school, but he needed to be alone with her and not watched by the guys to do this. Besides, as it turned out she didn't talk to him at all during school on Monday, for some reason she seemed to distracted too. It was probably some effect of the bruise from earlier, Butters guessed. Well, she'd have reason to feel better later on.  
  
That afternoon Butters left school and then hung around outside rehearsing his lines one more time before he went to the apartment. Finally he walked away and soon found himself in front of Julia's apartment. "W-Well, n-no turning back now, here we g-go." Butters sighed his deepest sigh before deciding to go forth and head on up there. He had to be confident about this, remembering the advice Stan and Wendy had given him.  
  
As it turned out, his resolve didn't get shaken by having to walk that tiring staircase to her room, because he found her right there in the halls when he got in. For some reason though, she didn't look all that thrilled to see him, she looked more worried and upset than happy. The bruise was behind this too, he figured. Oh well, more reason to start now. "Hey Julia!" Butters started.  
  
"Hey Butters" Julia answered with a lot less enthusiam as Butters did.  
  
"So, eh, you having a g-good day today?"  
  
"Yeah, it's been a good one." Butters was a bit too ready to get on with things to notice Julia's sarcasm. She went over to get a glass of soda on the floor which gave Butters more time to think of which line to start with.  
  
"So, I've been t-thinking, eh, we've had lots of fun while you've been living here, at least I have. And after you saved me from the 6'th graders, well, t-that's when I got to thinking I had m-more fun than I thought." Butters paused, the big moment was getting closer and closer. "I've had a great time doing all k-kinds of things with you, and I've d-done enough to know that, well, I, eh, like you." Butters took one final gasp of breath before finally getting it out. "You probably t-think I mean that as a friend, and I thought so too for a while. But, eh, I kinda meant that different and stuff. I like you, we've g-gone through that. Well, now we can both go through the face that I, well heck, I LIKE you like you, you know?" Maybe that wasn't the best romance line, but too late to change it now. All he had to do now was wait. And wait he did for 5 seconds until something more than a bit unexpected happened. She laughed.  
  
"What, did I slip in a joke there s-somewhere?" Julia's laughter seemed different than the laugh from a joke though, but what else could it be since this wasn't a joke?  
  
"You like me like me. Do you know how stupid that sounds? I already told you I have no time to even make friends, much less know people that are more than friends!"  
  
"Well, that w-was one of the things I thought we could work out."  
  
"Ha ha ha. You're talking to the wrong girl about that stuff, that's all I can say." Butters was more than a bit puzzled and was starting to feel a little bit hurt too. "You liking me that way, that sure pushes the limit of reality. I've only been here for almost 3 weeks and you jump the gun that quickly?"  
  
"Um, well, I d-didn't know there was a t-time limit to this thing."  
  
"What does it matter anyway? Sooner or later even if it was plausible it would end in a big disaster anyway, that's how the world usually works since I've seen it happen everywhere."  
  
"Eh, that doesn't happen to e-everybody, if it did then we really w-wouldn't be here, would we?" Julia laughed although not in the happy way Butters hoped would happen with that joke.  
  
"Always looking on the bright side, aren't you? That's nice, although rarely ever useful. I can put up with that in our current format, but do you know how crazy it would drive me after a while if you had your way?! Being annoyed by a life philosophy of someone's doesn't bode well for a relationship, so why try to fix that?" Now Butters was especially puzzled and more than a bit hurt? Wasn't acting that way part of being himself, and wasn't that supposed to work? Julia continued while he sorted that out.  
  
"You think things are always easy to fix with a smile. Well that doesn't apply to everything and maybe if that got through to you earlier, you wouldn't have had to beat up an evil alternate version of yourself to get people to remotely like you." Butters wanted to respond but he was so stunned and shocked at this string of insults that seemed to come out of nowhere that he couldn't speak. "You can take that as free, much needed advice from me, maybe you can even regard it as a reality check!"  
  
"J-J-J-Julia, a-a-are you s-s-sure this isn't the b-b-bruise talking?" Butters barely managed to translate that into English  
  
"No, it's reality. We both have to live in it now, the sooner we do that the better off we'll be. Getting rid of that stuff you said would likely be a good start, and so would that reality advice. Do you understand that?"  
  
"N-N-N-No, not r-r-really. T-T-They said this w-w-way would work." Julia didn't know Butters was referring to the advice he was given, but he wasn't going to explain since he had enough to deal with. He couldn't do that here though, so he walked out of the building to clear his head.  
  
Julia took another drink of soda after he went, and just stood there with an upset expression. But the more time that went by, the more that expression changed to regret. She really didn't know what to feel right now, now that she did what she had to do. Dad did need help in finishing up the packing of her room though, maybe that would get her mind off her increasing sadness....  
******************************************************  
Meanwhile, Butters didn't even have the ability to try to think that clearly as he walked down the street, his mind was way too jumbled up. Some of the things that came out from the confusion were: Did he really make her that angry? If not, where did this new side of her come from? But most importantly, why did she turn him down so harsly when Stan and Wendy said she would do no such thing? Weren't they supposed to know these things? They said she'd still want to be his friend even if things didn't work out, but she sounded like she could barely stand him, why? Why?!  
  
His mixed up emotions got cleared up though when he saw Stan, Wendy, and Kyle walking right towards him. They were likely on one of their collective group days out as part of Wendy's no jealousy plan, but right now Butters didn't care about that. Just seeing them got him a bit too miffed to care, a mood which he spoke out to them the minute they saw him.  
  
"You!!"  
  
"Are you talking to me or one of those two?", asked Kyle.  
  
"You're all right Kyle, not just cause you save dme from the Professor, but because you ddin't give me the worst advice ever!" Butters spit that out without any stuttering at all, which told the threesome that he was really pissed off about something. Wendy soon guessed what that was. "Did you meet Julia today?"  
  
"Yes I did, and for some reason she didn't follow through with what you said she'd say! You said shed turn me down nicely and still want to stay friends, that she wouldn't think of me stupid, that she liked me anyway!! But after she laughed at me and said my goody two shoes way of living was incredibly stupid and pretty much trashed everything about me, which was not a friend like thing to do, I just have to doubt you were the least bit right!!" Butters started to break down when he was done his speech. Stan was the first to react.  
  
"Dude, she said all that? That doesn't sound right, she seemed like she wasn't a real angry girl. Why would she say that?"  
  
"Because she never liked me and because she finally got tired of me, which I could have understood earlier since I'm used to people getting tired of me like you guys did back then! But you had to go get my hopes up and think everything would work out fine when I was too dumb to get that it wouldn't, are you happy now that you got your sick joke across?!"  
  
"Butters..." Wendy started off before Butters was cut off.  
  
"Just go, just get away from me!"  
  
"But you came to us, we weren't even planning to see you." Kyle replyed  
  
"Then plan to leave me alone now, okay?!" Butters ran off from the stunned group.  
  
"Whoh, she must have really done a number on him. Boy did we mess up good." Stan said. Wendy however, wasn't so sure. It really didn't make any sense, why would Julia react so negatively to Butters liking her that she would tear him apart? There were no hints to that before. At the least she should be flattered that someone liked her since she moved around all the time and didn't get to make many friends. Something clearly wasn't right, and it looked like Butters was paying the far too harsh price for it.  
  
In the meantime, more proof of that was taking place in the Stotch house where Butters had just come back to. His parents were surprised to see him look so tired and out of breath, but at that poin they were just happy to see him period. "Butters, where were you, why didn't you come right home or at least call if something came up?" his mother Linda started. His father Chris finished it for her. "Butters, you know better not to worry your mother and me like that, do you know what we've been through?" But Butters was in no mood to respond. "What they had been through? What about me, I just had my first experience with love go down hard and my whole way of living trashed!" Butters was thinking. And now he wasn't even in the mood to think as he ran upstairs to his room. His parents followed him a second later and were, to say the least, shocked to see their son beginning to cry on the bed.  
  
"Butters? What's this all about, we've yelled at you a lot worse than this and you didn't cry about it then." said Chris.  
  
Butters just kept crying until he was in a somewhat sane mood to tell his parents everything. And he did, he told them every detail about his realizations of love on Friday, the advice he had gotten from Stan and Wendy, the preperations he had taken and the hopes he had for when he would talk to Julia, and he barely got through telling them how she had shot down pretty much everything. His parents were once again, to say the least, stunned. Why in blazes hadn't he told them about this in the first place and why didn't he go to them for advice, they could have obviously given him something useful. They were a bit miffed about that, but they would have to put that aside for now to stop their son's second wave of tears. But before they could he started talking again.  
  
"A-A-And that isn't the w-w-worst part. She p-pretty much trashed my ent-tire way of living, she s-s-said I was too much of a g-goody two shoes. But, but I already t-tried to stop acting like t-that b-before and that l-led to the w-whole Professor C-Chaos business. I don't t-think I can find a w-way to have a kinda m-mix of those two lifes-styles, it's either one or the other for m-me. The guys didn't like the first one at f-first and I don't like the other one e-either! But now I'm s-sure Stan and Wendy have already t-told everyone what h-happened and they're g-getting ready to make fun of me f-for all this. And I guess that m-makes sense, if someone I only k-knew for 3 weeks hates me being a s-straight and n-narrow, the guys I know at s-school had to g-go back to hating it too eventually. So I g-guess that's it, I go from hoping someone would r-really like me in one hour and r-r-realize no one does at all the next. No one l-liked me as a v-villain and soon n-no one will l-like me as a g-good guy, that s-seems about right for a n-nothing like me!"  
  
Butters parents really had nothing to say, they were too shocked in taking this all in and the fact that he started crying again when he was finished didn't help. They already knew their son was full of more surprises than they thought when they found out about Professor Chaos, and they didn't handle that whole thing where evil Butters made their Butters look bad as well as they should have. But now Butters was back in that same fragile state he was in before the Chaos business started to end, and this was unfamilar territory for his parents since they'd never seen him like this before. What could they possibly say to cheer him up?  
  
Chris figured it out though- the only way to get him outta this was to tell him the truth that Butters had overlooked.  
  
"So you're a nothing. Okay, fine then. I never heard of a nothing that created an evil alter ego and then still had enough compassion in him to give it up to save his friends, so at least you got that going." Linda then caught on to her husband's act.  
  
"Right, and this is the first case I've heard of a nothing that saved not one, but two universes from an evil brat, and convinced a scared kid to face his fears in order to do the right thing. I sure never heard of a nothing doing that stuff."  
  
Chris wrapped it up. "And nothings don't usually have the bravery to help a friend face her fear of a conjoined fetus nurse in order to get medical treatment. Oh, and any other nothing probably would have turned out to be a cynical, wisecracing butthole in a town like this, but apperantly this is a nothing that, despite a few slipups we may have yelled at him for too well, still manages to show all the compassion and kindess he has when he needs to. That's kind of pushing the boundaries of nothingness, I'll say that."  
  
Butters finally began to stop crying and he looked up at his father as he made one more point. "That's a lot of evidence to show that we don't have a nothing for a son. We know it, and I think that's enough proof to show that you should know it too. And if someone can't appriciate what a special boy you are, then I'm sorry, but I don't think they're worth crying over. You already know what kind of boy you are, and no one else should be allowed to change that for you."  
  
Linda wrapped things up after that. "All right, I think we made enough good points. We should probably go to let him take some more time out from all this. But if you need us, we'll be real downstairs, and we'll listen to everything you have left to say because, although we may forget about it sometimes while we're yelling at you, we love you more than anything and we've always been proud of you." Butters parents hugged and kissed him before they went to leave their son with his thoughts. He sure had a lot to think about anyway.  
******************************************************  
While that series of melodrama was going on, Wendy had stared one of her own. She had found out from Kyle where Julia lived, and she then went down there to get the answer to why Julia did what she did to Butters, one way or another. First off, she knocked on Julia's front door and she let her in, though she looked too distraced to even notice. After Wendy said hello and settled in, she got stared on her job.  
  
"So Julia, Butters told me about the meeting you two had today." Julia was visibly upset after she heard that, though Wendy kept going. "Apperantly you reacted to his confession of love by telling him he was too much of a sap to like at all, at least that's what I understood from his yelling and crying."  
  
"You...you don't understand." Julia said in between huge sighs.  
  
"That's right I don't understand, I don't understand how you could do that to someone who's supposed to be your friend! Look, I don't know Butters as well as you or the others in our class, but I know, we all know how sensitive he can be. He created an evil alter ego he barely was able to get rid of when his FRIENDS turned him down, who knows what he's be going through after someone he LOVED turned him down! And why? Because he happens to have some sincerity and kindness that is a rare thing in this kind of world we're living in?! Sorry if I don't understand that!"  
  
After Wendy's speech was over, Julia ran into her room. Wendy followed and saw her sitting down looking very shooken up- and it's with that Wendy realized she was sitting down on a place where her bed should be, but wasn't. Then she saw that there were boxes of toys and clothes all over the room. Then she finally noticed the packed up boxes all over the Simmons apartment room. Well, Wendy thought, it looked like she found her explanation. Now she knew what might have driven her to say such things, what might have made her so upset that she'd say things she would likely never say. Because by this time tomorrow, she'd be outta this town for good. And that fun she had with Butters earlier was gonna be something she was gonna miss. That may just have been what drove her to that series of insults that may have pushed Butters over the edge- but in Wendy's mind, that was no excuse to push Butters over the edge to start with. However, yelling this point at her was obviously not going to help. So she decided to try another approach straight from her own experiences.  
  
"Look Julia, let's talk on the assumption that it was the goody two shoes part of him that caused this thing. So that's something about him you don't like. Well, if you want to find someone perfect to fix that, it's gonna be a long wait. No one is perfect, even my boyfriend Stan is far from perfect. The tabloids had their fun reporting what I hated about him the most, the vomiting stuff."  
  
"Yeah, my Dad did find his time to check into that story as much as he could."  
  
"The point is, before I actually did some good by saving him and exposing that douche John Edward, I did some thinking. Was that vomiting thing enough of a bad thing for me to forget all the good, sweet things about Stan that I know and love? No, it wasn't. So if it wasn't that bad, why should I mind it at all? There's too many things that I like about him to mind the bad stuff. I had to remember that the hard way when Stan almost got taken away. And I don't want you to make my mistake at Butters expense this time, and I doubt you really want to." Wendy paused to let that sink in before she finished up. "You don't have to like him that way, I'm not telling you that you have to. But if you really had as much fun with him as it looked, then there's nothing to complain about. And if you would rather think of him as a friend and if you really consider him as a friend, then you owe it to him to tell him that."  
  
Wendy got up and started to leave before Mr Simmons came in, apperantly finished with listening in on her talk.  
  
"Julia? She's right, you know."  
  
"Dad..." Julia started.  
  
"This isn't the first time you've done this sort of thing. You've broken off with people I thought were your friends at least twice before just before we left. I never understood that then, and I really don't understand why you did that now." said Mr Simmons.  
  
"Dad, do you think I'm happy? Do you think I was glad to break his heart like that?! No, I'm not, but it was my only choice!"  
  
Mr Simmons and Wendy were a bit confused about that before Julia continued. "We move around all the time, and I deal with that the best I can. And having to deal with the sadness of leaving behind a friend doesn't fit into that plan! The only chance I had to avoid that was to end it with a fight like that, and when he told me that he liked me, well, that way, I really didn't have any choice! The goody two shoes thing was the first thing I could think of to make it plausible, and I had to think quick! Don't you get it, that was the only thing I could do to not feel depressed for the next few months and cities! That wouldn't fit in with dealing with this kind of life as best I can!" Julia paused to catch her breath and to add one more thing. "But if that's true, why don't I feel happier?"  
  
Mr Simmons summed up the obvious. "Because you hurt someone who only deserved that treatment for your made up reasons." He then sat next to his daughter. "Julia, I'm not a big fan of this lifestyle either, you know? If I was remotely good at anything else and if there was any other job I loved to do, I'd drop this. But I can't, and my only way to deal with that is to make sure my daughter lives as best she can. And when Butters came over here, that was some of the most fun you had living I ever saw you do. You never had time to make many friends before, and now you made one that likes you enough to like you like you! Now I don't think that's something you can toss away in an arguement."  
  
"But, but we'll be on the road at noon tomorrow, how can I see or hear from him with that?" Julia asked as her last line of defense. Wendy then promptly broke that down.  
  
"Butters told me that he hoped that was something he could work out with you. Maybe you could at least try to make one of his wishes come true."  
  
Wendy then left the room and Mr Simmons decided to leave too to let all this sink in. Julia sure needed as much private time as she could to figure this out. There was no way she could talk to Butters now after what she did, and she wouldn't see him at school tomorrow because she'd be gone at noon. Of all the times to figure out huge boneheaded mistakes....  
******************************************************  
Later that night, Chris and Linda were sitting on their couch and hoping Butters would come down soon for dinner. And right on cue, they heard him coming down the stairs. They then went in front of the stairs and kneeled down in front of him. Butters didn't have any tears in his eyes or one his face anymore, so that was a good sign. He didn't make any facial expression actually, he just walked right up to his parents and gave them each a big hug. A family hug then ensued, sealing the deal that Butters was now starting to feel better and had chosen this way to thank his Mom and Dad for it. His parents were sure glad they had done that good of a job, that's for sure.  
******************************************************  
The next morning looked the same as every other morning. Butters was sitting in his seat on the bus to school along with everyone else. Everyone except Julia for obvious reasons, but Cartman and Kenny can't be found either. Stan and Kyle were there though, and they were sitting down right next to Butters right now.  
  
"Hey Butters, how's it going?" Kyle started. Butters didn't answer though. "Look, I heard what happened and I was the first one to figure it out, so I understand." Stan continued after that.  
  
"Butters, we're real sorry about Julia, and we want you to know you can talk to us. We won't make fun of you or anything, in face we went through a lot to make sure no one else would."  
  
Butters then looked up in confusion and Kyle took that chance to explain. "You know why Cartman's not here? Because me and Stan decided to have a sleepover at his house last night, and while he was sleeping we took his dolls and buried them in the backyard. Now he's searching his whole house and digging up his whole yard, and he dragged Kenny with him. Even if they get to school Cartman will be too busy yelling at us to make fun of you. And that's if he knew about this, which he won't and if we have our way, none of the other jerks here will. That should make the road to recovery easier for you."  
  
Butters finally spoke when that latest in this series of speeches ended. "You stole Eric's dolls and made him miss s-school for me?"  
  
"Sure dude, we thought that'd make things easier. We're your friends, that's the kinda things we do for friends." Stan said.  
  
"B-But aren't you t-tired of me being a goody two shoes like you w-were before?" Kyle then answered that. "Yeah, we like making fun of that, but we make fun of all our friends for something. There's a lot worse things to be made fun of than for being a pussy who actually tries to help us out. You're our friend anyway, we do this stuff for all of them. Except for Cartman."  
  
"Naturally" added Stan. A loud "SCREW YOU GUYS!!!!" was then heard in a voice that sounded a lot like Cartman's. Stan and Kyle laughed at that, and after a while Butters laughed too. That wasn't a bad first laugh in a while for him at all.  
  
Finally they got to school and got off the bus. Butters was the last one off and he was met by Wendy once he did get off.  
  
"Butters, are you sure you're okay?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm f-fine. Heck, everyone knows I survived a lot w-worse than this before."  
  
"I'm really sorry things didn't work out for you. I know how much you wanted them to."  
  
"That's okay, Wendy. As long as we're p-playing the blame game I'm sorry I yelled at you and Stan. Besides, you w-wouldn't have been able to give all that advice if I hadn't asked you to s-start with, right?"  
  
"I went over there after I saw you complain about that advice, you know. I told her she was wrong and her Dad did too, but I don't know how much good it did. Besides, there were moving boxes everywhere and she wasn't on the bus today, so it's safe to say she's gone." Butters signed, though at least he had been able to figure that possibility out after he had calmed down last night.  
  
"Oh w-well, that's fine. I got p-plently of time to find someone else to get a c-crush on. Hey, you and Stan didn't hit one outta the p-park the first time and look what happened! Thanks for going to all that t-trouble for me though."  
  
"You're welcome. I found someone that makes me feel lucky, I know you'll find someone someday that'll make you feel the same way." Wendy gave Butters more reassurance by giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before she went off to school. After a while Butters went off too, now fully ready to start another fun day of school.  
******************************************************  
Later on it was time for another fun recess too, and Butters started that off by swinging on the swings. He was glad to finally be able to turn his brain off and have that kind of mindless fun again, where the only thing to worry about was throwing up if he went too high.  
  
"Butters."  
  
Huh? He hadn't even gone that high and now he was hearing voices, female voices at that.  
  
"Psst, Butters."  
  
Now the voice was sounding a lot more familar. Way too familar at that. He stopped swinging and figured it would stop then- no such luck.  
  
"Butters!"  
  
It was coming from a nearby bush in front of the playground brick wall, so Butters went there to check it out. When he went behind it, he saw that his wildest suspicions were indeed correct.  
  
"Julia?! W-What are you doing here?!"  
  
"I have to leave in an hour, so my Dad figured he'd let me stop by here for a while before we made the final preperations. So here I am." Butters struggled to think of what he could possibly say to her now. He obviously only had one shot left to do it.  
  
"Look, if this is about me being a g-goody two shoes again..."  
  
"No, that's not it."  
  
"Well, why was it b-back there then? I know I can be k-kinda annoying, but that's how I am. I like the way I am and so do lots of other p-people too."  
  
"I know, I'm one of them." Now this was the biggest shock in this series of shocks to Butters. "W-What was t-that?"  
  
"Butters, I've been doing a lot of thinking all night long. Mostly about how I'm no good with dealing with friends because I've barely had any. My meaning of friendship was to push them away before I left so I wouldn't feel bad about leaving them behind. When I came to this town I didn't think I'd have to do it again. But I was having so much fun with you these last few weeks that I forgot about that until Sunday. And when you told me, well, what you told me, I knew I had to do something extreme to avoid missing you so much after I left. But that's no excuse."  
  
Julia caught her breath and then touched Butters shoulder as she continued. "Butters, you are the best friend I've ever had, and that shouldn't have been something I forgot in my rage yesterday. You're not an overbearing goody two shoes, the fact that you're enough of one to always be there for your friends like you were with the evil Butters thing and with me, well, that's one of your best features. And I couldn't leave without making sure that my wrong wrong, just plain wrong insults didn't change that about you."  
  
Butters took a while before he was able to respond. "A-Actually, my p-parents and my friends made pretty darn sure that wouldn't h-happen before you c-clinched that for me."  
  
"Yeah, my Dad helped me with my being wrong too, but he wouldn't have had the chance if Wendy didn't speak up before then."  
  
"That's r-right, she did. My parents and my f-friends spent their share of time doing that stuff too. At least now I k-know they'd be more than happy to do that again if I need them too."  
  
"I'm glad you found that out, otherwise the impossbile would have happened and I would have felt even worse than I do." Julia paused. "Butters, the only thing I wasn't completly full of shit in saying was that I didn't feel that way about you than you do about me. But on the off chance you decide to forgive me, I would gladly take being your friend as a consulation."  
  
"Well, the m-main thing I was upset about was the goody two shoes crack, and since we already p-proved that's not a factor, I don't have any reason to be mad anymore! Besides, things were a lot easier when I just thought of you as a friend, and I l-liked having easy times with you." But after all that praise, Butters then remembered one final big negative. "I'd like to be your f-friend again too, if it wasn't for the f-fact that after this we won't be seeing each other again."  
  
"Actually, that's another reason why I came down here." She got out a piece of paper and a pen. "Would you humor me by writing down your address for me?" Butters was puzzled, but he wrote it down anyway. "Perfect, now I know where to send my letters to."  
  
"H-How did we get to talking about mail now?"  
  
"Because that's how we're gonna keep in touch. After I get settled in my new house, I'll write a letter to do and send it to that address. And I'll also give you my new address so you can write letters back to me. And every time I move I'll write you a letter telling you what my new address is and you can send letters to me with that. We'll be like penpals."  
  
"We will? Heh, well we're already pals and I like p-pens, this sounds like a great combination of two things I like! SO even if we don't see each other again, we can still keep in t-touch!"  
  
"Yeah, I doubt they're going to invite my Dad's acting troupe back here since so few people saw him the first time. But maybe if we're close by we can come over and see you. I'd like that."  
  
"Yeah, m-me too." Butters exchanged a smile with his newfound friend- until the bell signaling that recess was over rang. Now they both were sad again since Butters would have to go and she would have to get back to his Dad and go for good, and the same thought ran through their heads- Now that we're friends again, how am I gonna say goodbye in case we never actually see each other again?  
  
"Well, um, I guess you'd better go now." Butters tried to think of a way to answer Julia, until he came up with something. He offered his hand for a handshake in much the same way he did when they first met. "I'd guess I should. Um, goodbye Julia."  
  
"Goodbye Butters"  
  
Julia took Butters hand and shook it for some time. During that time Butters allowed his mind to race one last time. If this was the last time he'd actually see her, he might as well do everything he wanted to do with her in case he never had the chance again. And there was one thing he was looking forward to do before yesterday that he might as well get outta his system. Besides, it wasn't a sign that he still felt that way about her, because he didn't. This would just be a way of saying goodbye to a friend and to say thanks for everything. And he decided that he might as well take that possible one shot to do it now.  
  
For this one time in his life, he wasn't going to worry at all when he did something, so he just leaned in and did it. He did think briefly that kissing her felt a lot better than it did when he kissed a pillow before he turned his brain off to enjoy it. Julia's mind was racing at first though, but she decided not to object since she knew Butters was just getting these last romantic feelings out while he could, and she still owed him some payback after how she treated him. Besides, it sure felt like he had done his homework on this kissing stuff. And after about 6 seconds, the lesson was over as Butters finally pulled away.  
  
None of them had anything to say if they could think of anything, so Butters decided to let that be a fitting parting shot. He started to climb out of the bush and took one more look at her before he went away and back into school. Julia took this cue to get out herself and climb over the wall to get back to her waiting Dad. As she left South Park Elementary for good though, she couldn't help but smile at hearing one last thing from an overjoyed Butters.  
  
"Wow, now I _really_ don't know why Stan was so nervous to do that stuff, but I sure know why he likes to do something that neato now!!"  
******************************************************  
About a little more than a week later, Butters came home after a normal day of school. He was greeted by his parents, and his Dad was the one with something for him. "Butters, someone you know sent you something in the mail this morning."  
  
Butters immediatly jumped up and got the letter from his Dad's had, then he tore it open and started reading what Julia had written right away.  
  
Dear Butters,  
Well, as I write this letter we finally got finished unpacking all our stuff here. We're now settled in to the city of Dallas, Texas, and so far my Dad's show there has been a lot more succesful than the shows in South Park. Though that's probably because they offered free beer to everyone, but as long as it makes money and lets Dad keep performing, I'm not that concered.  
I already started school there, it's a bit hard to get used to a normal school again[though I don't mind listening to a normal teacher again]but I'm doing fine so far. I'm starting to get some things about my classmates and I've already told off the fat asshole they've got there too. His anger isn't as funny as Cartman's though, but why waste time comparing everything? Aside from the endless protesting over the actions of that guy who was Governer of this state before he became President, things are peaceful here.  
How are things going on back at South Park since I left? Did the others hear that little cheer you made after you left? If they did and they started reminding you about it in a not so nice way, don't let that bother you. Someone told me that the things that people don't find so popular are less important if the person knows how great they are everywhere else. Well actually, she didn't tell me in those exact words, but they were the best ones I can think of. You get the idea.  
My mailing address is 1232 W.Bush Lane, so now you know how to answer those questions I gave you. I'll be waiting for them and I'll be happy to see them answered, hopefully soon. Until then, this is  
  
Your friend,  
Julia.  
  
Once Butters finished, he immediatly went up to his room to begin thinking of how to write back. After a whole night of thinking, he wound up with this.  
  
Dear Julia,  
I'm real glad to hear you and your Dad are doing great so far. Things are about the same here, Cartman's still yelling, Kenny's still getting injuries he seems to get rid of the very next morning, and Mr Garrison is still talking about stuff I don't understand but everyone else seems to get it and groan about it. And yeah, some people did hear about that cheer I made, but Stan, Kyle and Wendy made sure that didn't cause too much trouble for me with the jokers of our class. Actually, I think most of them were more surprised than amused by it, I thought I heard someone say that they thought I'd turn out gay or something, but that's probably me hearing voices.  
Anyway, I'm doing just fine here and I hope you're doing great at that place where that squinty eyed President guy came from. You shouldn't have any trouble, once those kids there find out what a nice and fun person you are, you should be writing to a lot of kids when you leave there. And if not, I'm sure your Dad can fix that, he seems like the kind of guy who's there for you when things go bad. You have people that can do that for you, and so do I. So we're both pretty lucky, aren't we?  
Well, I'll share any other luck with you the next chance, you do the same. Till then, I am and I'm happy to be  
  
Your friend,  
Butters.  
  
THE END  
  
Well, that's it. This is a different fic than usual for me, and I hope I get a lot of comments from it and not just ones from the trio that always reviews my SP stuff, Brown Sugar, JusSonic, and the amazing Mesfab[who sent reviews for my first two SP fics via e-mail]Enjoy the 100'th episode when you're done here, everyone! 


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